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NYCFC drops deadline plan for Bronx soccer stadium

New York City has a new mayor, and contrary to expectations Bill de Blasio does not have a ticking time bomb of a soccer stadium deal to rule on in the first month or two of his administration, as NYC F.C. and outgoing mayor Michael Bloomberg failed to agree on a memorandum of understanding for the project before the end of the year.

In retrospect, this actually makes a fair bit of sense for team owners Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the New York Yankees: Setting a deadline wasn’t going to be much of a threat (“Approve our stadium money or else we won’t ask for it!”), and was only likely to upset the local elected officials and community members who right now seem to be collectively taking a “we wouldn’t mind a stadium, we just want one that has something in it for us” approach to the whole deal. So brinksmanship is apparently off the table for the moment, and haggling is in.

2 comments on “NYCFC drops deadline plan for Bronx soccer stadium”

One other piece of interesting news is the fact that the Terminal Produce Market will remain at Hunts Point (keeping 3,000 jobs in The Bronx), which takes a possible Stadium landing spot off the table (and naturally increases the odds that East 153rd Street will be the location of the Stadium). Does it mean that it is a given this will happen there, if at all? No, but it helps.

Well, it’s not like “Approve our stadium money or else we won’t ask for it!” hasn’t worked before… so maybe this is just a cooling off period before the real non threat threats thunder down on NY pols like a ton of theoretical bricks…